Infonews n°271 du 26/03/2006
Where does April Fool come from?
Quizzes and Tests
World's media plays the April Fool
Practical jokes and Pranks
Hoaxes
Links
American humor for advanced students
MES English
Site de Nancy-Metz
Four Season Class Mural (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, March 10th)
Reader's theater and scripts for immediate use
UK Public Information films
Grammar Quizzes
Dressed to the Nines: A History of the Baseball Uniform ( from [LII New This
Week] March 9)
History of The London Bridge (from [LII New This Week] March 9)
How Smart watches work
*** How Products Are Made
Instructables (from [LII New This Week] March 9)
Quiz Maker
Take Five ( from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Wednesday, March 8th)
Inviting/disinviting comments, behavior, and signs
Teachers Network ( from The Scout Report -- March 24)
Where does April Fool come from?
- History of the day (complete, with links)
http://www.usemb.se/Holidays/celebrate/april.html
http://stockholm.usembassy.gov/Holidays/celebrate/april.html (the
same)
http://newsinjection.ihug.co.nz/April02/aprilfools.htm
http://wilstar.com/holidays/aprilfool.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fool's_Day
(including several hoaxes)
- Short presentations of the day
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/society/A0804428.html
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ap/AprilFoo.html (very
short!)
http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/other/aprlfool.html
http://www.geocities.com/atine6/ (
plus vintage postcards, including this one from which you can teach may, might,
etc.:
http://www.geocities.com/atine6/cards/07.jpg )
- Longer ones
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/april/aprlfool.htm
http://pressroom.hallmark.com/april_fools.html (around
cards and pranks)
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p593.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aforigin.html (ancient,
medieval roots, etc.)
http://www.2camels.com/destination44.php3
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/5365/fool.html (plus
ideas of how to turn the prank on the kids; and learn "short sheeting"=
lit en portefeuille.)
- How different countries celebrate it
http://www.calendar-updates.com/Holidays/Canada/aprilfools.htm
http://holidays.mrdonn.org/aprilfools.html
http://homepages.tesco.net/%7Ederek.berger/holidays/aprilfool.html (poems,
suggestions, voc.)
Quizzes and Tests
http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/hisholidays/l/blquizholapfool.htm (about
the history of the day)
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tests/afquiz.html (
a written test : is it true or is it a hoax. real jokes from the newspapers)
http://www.quizarama.com/afanswer.php (same
type, interactive)
http://www.ilovethatteachingidea.com/ideas/010402_april_fools_day_quiz.htm (a
classic, how to without the text)
*** http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/assemblies/index.cfm?mode=searchdisplay&id=34&history=keyword (the
same, with the text of the mock test)
http://www.virtualgravy.com/cards/aptest.shtml (online
test : in two click, got ya!)
http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa040198.htm (spot
the language mistakes. very difficult. for advanced students)
World's media plays the April Fool
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1254570.stm (several
stories published in the papers)
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa040201a.htm?terms=April+Fool+Gags (id,
plus links)
Practical jokes and Pranks
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1939.htm
http://www.scatty.com/ (jokes for children,
by categories, including the famous knock-knock ones...)
Hoaxes
http://www.april-fools.us/
See especially the GM carrots, or the tax on pets, there is also a list of
pranks...
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/
Read about the spaghetti tree, and some other hoaxes. the top 100 hoaxes of
all time.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/virushoax.html (Urban
Legends and Virus Alerts)
and when you mention hoax, don't forget to encourage your students to go and
check the current hoaxes on hoaxbuster.com before they forward an alarming
message to all their friends!
http://www.hoaxbuster.com/
Links
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/aprilfools/aprilfools.asp
http://www.2meta.com/april-fools/links/ (to
humor sites and newspapers, etc.)
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/categories/category/April%20Fool's%20Day/
(stories of hoaxes and pranks)
American humor for advanced students
This site features a selection of essays that appeared in the journal Studies
in American Humor from 1974 to 1994. Topics include Mark Twain, immigrant stereotypes
1880-1900, "Catch-22" and angry humor, Will Rogers, S. J. Perelman,
and New Yorker cartoons. From a retired editor of the journal.
http://www.compedit.com
MES English
Laure Peskine recommends this site for young ESL learners. You will find
there precious resources for young ESL learners and even for intermediate students.
MES stands for Mark's English School and the author is Mark Cox, an American
pharmacist who moved to Japan and opened a language school. He wants to share
his resources with other ESL teachers, so he grants you full permission to
reproduce, copy and distribute the documents to your students. Here are some
of the resources you can find there:
- free flash cards : fruit, clothes, chores, jobs, phrasal verbs, etc.
http://www.mes-english.com/flashcards.php
- the phonics section : with flash card and hand out to study specific sounds
(like the silent 'e') or to memorize words and sound as is (Dolch Sight words)
http://www.mes-english.com/phonics.php
- the Virtual key Pal and projects page
http://www.mes-english.com/vkeypals.php
- for grammar discover the grammar comics
http://www.grammarmancomic.com
http://www.grammarmancomic.com/spectrelesson.html (with
the comic to read online, and a lesson plan for the teacher to use it in class.)
and play the games
http://www.marks-english-school.com/games.html
I found the present perfect game disappointing : the sentence 'I haven't visited
China three times' is wrong because you were supposed to select 'five times'
instead of 'three'!!!!!!! But I enjoyed the preposition basketball game : the
students have to wait between the questions, but it allows them to memorize
or writen down the sentence;
http://www.marks-english-school.com/games/b_prepmed.html
Site de Nancy-Metz
Bookmark this site! You will find lots of resources there, but the originality
is that they are ordered by objectives: counting from 1 to ten, meeting someone,
asking a question and answering, quoting ten parts of the body, etc.
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/primaire/primaire.htm#metz
Those objectives have been chosen according to the auto-evaluation grid designed
by Orleans-Tours
http://www.ac-orleans-tours.fr/anglais-liens/sitepedago/primaire/evalcm.htm
Four Season Class Mural (from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Friday, March 10th)
Now that the spring season is just around the corner, try this lesson plan
for discussing what kinds of characteristics are associated with the season.
Then brainstorm and create your own class mural, according to the directions
given at this site.
http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=5624
Reader's theater and scripts for immediate use
Béatrice Monnier on e-teach recommends this site of free scripts for lower
intermediate students. They use a simple vocabulary, the sentences are short
and easy to memorize, they stories are rather for primary school children,
but some older students may have fun acting them. And it is a nice way to encourage
them to learn some English.
http://loiswalker.com/catalog/guidesamples.html
UK Public Information films
Jenifer Tranier discovered this page on the BBC website and recommended it
on e-teach. The page features several historical public information films from
the past 60 years. They are excellent teaching material, since the films have
purposefully pictures redundant with the comment in the sound track. They may
look old, but the messages they convey are always interesting.
Some can be used in primary school, with beginners or lower intermediates ( <http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/in_depth/uk/2006/public_information_films//nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4740000/newsid_4744800/nb_rm_4744802.stm>Rap
warns of road dangers , or <http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/in_depth/uk/2006/public_information_films//nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4740000/newsid_4747500/nb_rm_4747544.stm>Sharing
the burden of being bullied ), and even advanced students will enjoy commenting
on some of those films, like the advices in case of a nuclear attack ( there
is a warning siren just like during WWII and another for the "end of danger"
sign, and if you were outside during the attack, remember to brush off all
dust from your clothes before you go inside a building!), or the <http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/in_depth/uk/2006/public_information_films//nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4690000/newsid_4693300/nb_rm_4693366.stm>'It
won't take us long to find you' a film parody of the detective TV series of
the 60s.
the page announcing the competition
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4743380.stm#competition
the page with all the films
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/in_depth/uk/2006/public_information_films/nb_rm_default.stm
Grammar Quizzes
The Internet TESL Journal features this page of grammar quizzes. Each quiz
has 10 to 100 questions, Hot Potatoes style. Each question appears in turn,
and you get your score immediately for this question. If you chose the wrong
answer, the right one appear immediately and you are invited to do the question
again. They are ordered from easy to difficult. Some of the difficult ones
are training for the TOEFL and
"particules in conversation" where students have to choose the right
preposition to write after a verb. The easy one are exercises like "choose
the right verb form" where the students can practice irregular verbs,
use of do, did, does, and choose the correct tense according to the markers
in the sentence.
These exercises require students to have a minimum knowledge of basic grammar.
They will be very useful from intermediate level upwards and can be excellent
for students who are motivated to improve their grammar skills. They can be
used for relaxed last minute revisions for an exam (bac or above).
http://a4esl.org/q/j/ck/mc-vf02.html
Dressed to the Nines: A History of the Baseball Uniform ( from [LII New This Week] March 9)
This exhibit examines the history of baseball uniforms from the mid-1800s
to the 21st century. Features an illustrated timeline, essays on parts of the
uniform (such as caps, jerseys, numbers and names, stockings, and shoes), a
database of uniform designs, and activities for children. From the National
Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/exhibits/online_exhibits/dressed_to_the_nines/
for more links about baseball, go to :
http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/20681
[ for students interested in baseball, but also all those who like to analyze
the side effects of a sport. The testimonies about how kids felt in their uniform
when they wore it for the first time can be transferred to several other fields
(school uniform, army uniform, horse-guards, belonging to a team, etc.) They
may also enjoy the logic games around the mix-and-match flipbook:
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/exhibits/online_exhibits/dressed_to_the_nines/activity_2.htm ]
History of The London Bridge (from [LII New This Week] March 9)
This essay called "History of The London Bridge and Lake Havasu City" describes
the events surrounding the 1971 move of the London Bridge to Lake Havasu City,
Arizona, and the bridge's subsequent reconstruction. Includes brief history
of the bridges that spanned the River Thames in London, and details about the
man who won the bid to bring this bridge to Lake Havasu City when the British
government put it up for sale in 1962. From Lake Havasu City Chamber of Commerce.
http://www.havasuchamber.com/lbridge.htm
An illustrated history and timeline describing
"all the bridges that have been known as London Bridge over the past 2000
years." Includes discussion of Roman bridges to cross the River Thames
in London, the effects of the Great Fire of 1666, and of the bridge that was
moved and rebuilt in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. From the London Bridge Museum
and Educational Trust.
http://www.oldlondonbridge.com/history.shtml
[ when you visit London, you may want to see London Bridge, the one from the
song. Well, Tower bridge is there, but London Bridge was moved to the US in
1971. Read the full story! The second site offers beautiful documents, and
an interactive history and timeline. ]
How Smart watches work
How Stuff Works presents the Smart watch :
"There's no doubt that with the popularity of devices like Blackberrys,
Palm Pilots and Treo, the trend in technology is to get more and more
"connectivity" into smaller and smaller packages. The next step in
this technological evolution is the Smart Watch." You will read how it
is linked to the internet and also see the detail of its components (second
address)
There's no doubt that with the popularity of devices like Blackberrys, Palm
Pilots and Treo, the trend in technology is to get more and more
"connectivity" into smaller and smaller packages. The next step in
this technological evolution is the Smart Watch.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/smart-watch.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/smart-watch4.htm
*** How Products Are Made
two newsletters this month feature this excellent site. here are their reviews:
from [LII New This Week] March 9 : "Detailed explanations for "the
manufacturing process of a wide variety of products, from daily household items
to complicated electronic equipment and heavy machinery." Includes an
illustrated overview of the assembly and the manufacturing process, a description
of how the item works, a list of raw materials used, and related information.
Products include air bags, artificial snow, popcorn, television, and much more.
From Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation."
from The Scout Report -- March 10 : "In a world that has the capability
to create infinitesimally tiny machines, it may be hard for some to understand
how the most basic products are created. This website attempts to answer some
of those questions, beginning with information on how accordions are made,
and ending with a discussion on the creation of zirconium. For each item, visitors
will have the opportunity to learn about the processes involved with their
manufacture and assembly. Perhaps users have wondered how the tiny candy corn
is manufactured? They need wonder no more after taking a look at this site.
The site also takes on more complex items, such as the camera lens and the
nicotine patch. Overall, the site contains dozens of such detailed descriptions,
and can be enjoyed by persons of all ages and interests. [KMG]
http://www.madehow.com/
[ no animations, but the production process is described in much more details
than on http://www.howstuffworks.com .
A useful resource for all those studying manufacturing and engineering design.]
Instructables (from [LII New This Week] March 9)
This site provides "a step-by-step collaboration system that helps you
record and share your projects with a mixture of images, text, ingredient lists,
CAD files, and more." Includes instructions for hundreds of projects,
many that are technology related (such as making a robot from a computer mouse
and building a portable light) and others that are not (such as constructing
a marshmallow gun from plastic pipes.) From an engineering design and technology
innovation company.
http://www.instructables.com/
This film has just received an Oscar. See the full list of the winners:
<http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2006/story/0,,1724519,00.html>http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2006/story/0,,1724519,00.html
Read some reviews of the film in French
<http://www.cahiersducinema.com/article673.html>http://www.cahiersducinema.com/article673.html
http://cinema.telerama.fr/edito.asp?art_airs=WEB1002381&sru[...]
<http://cinema.nouvelobs.com/info_film.php?id_film=FI9254369>http://cinema.nouvelobs.com/info_film.php?id_film=FI9254369
and reviews in English ( and watch the trailers):
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379725/>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379725/
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/50/capote.htm
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2006/02/20/capote_2006_review.shtml>http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2006/02/20/capote_2006_review.sh[...]
http://www.timeout.com/film/83038.html
<http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/capote>http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/capote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capote_(film)
Quiz Maker
Prongo is a site which offers, for the moment, some interesting free features.
You can use the ready-made quizzes (I like the one about the inventors, as
a tool to end a unit about inventors and inventions)
http://www.prongo.com/quiz.html
You can also make your own quiz (registration is free for the moment...)
http://www.prongo.com/quizstation/
Take Five ( from Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Wednesday, March 8th)
Look for a fun and creative variety of sponge activities listed at this site.
Keep your list handy for those extra five minutes before the bell rings, when
all other work has been completed.
http://www.teachnet.com/powertools/take5/index.html
[ interesting ideas to keep the students active during the last minutes of
a lesson, and even send them home with a question in their head, the solution
of which will be discussed in class at the next lesson "what inventions
are foot operated?". They might like it better than learning a lesson.]
Inviting/disinviting comments, behavior, and signs
Riverdeep's Classroom Flyer, Tuesday, March 7th recommends this site because
: "Fully forty comments are listed here to help you focus on positive
verbal communication with your students. Also included are negative comments
you should avoid, along with suggestions for printed signs and inviting environments."
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/40succes.htm
[ Some will find these lists very funny. Some may find it quite interesting
from a cultural point of view because it lists not only inviting and disinviting
verbal comments ("I'm impressed!" is inviting, "You can't be
that dumb." is disinviting), but also behavior ( Gawking at an accident
or littering are disinviting...) , environment (insects like flies and roaches
are disinviting, as well as dead plants and bare walls) and even signs ( "No
Shirt, No Service" is disinviting whereas "Pardon Our Dust" is
inviting.). Have fun! ]
Teachers Network ( from The Scout Report -- March 24)
Based in New York, the Teachers Network is an alliance of education professionals
dedicated to disseminating best-practices throughout the world of public school
education. On the homepage, visitors can click through a selection of lesson
plans, essays by current teachers on their own experiences, and also read a
list of grants available to those working in a number of disciplines, including
social studies, language arts, and the sciences. The “How To” area is one that
will be most helpful to new teachers, as it provides resources on managing
a classroom, working with students’ families, and teaching literacy. The lesson
plans area includes a nice search feature which allows users to search by subject
and grade level, along with offering them the option to view the most popular
teacher-created lesson plans. Some of these favorites include “What Makes a
Good Friend?” and
“Breads Around the World”. For educators and those with an interest in
researching the realm of curriculum and instruction, this website is a real
find. [KMG]
http://www.teachnet.org/
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/ntol/ntol_how_to.htm
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